A TERRIBLE GALE

Southland Times, Issue 18833, 28 May 1920, Page 4

A TERRIBLE GALE

CHRISTCHURCH STRUCK BY SOO WESTER. LAKE COLERIDGE LINES INTER , RUPTED. (Per United Prese Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 27. A tremendous south-westerly gale swept over the city in the early hours of this morning,’damaging trees, breaking overhead wires, and disturbing households b3' its extraordinary violence. A policeman who was on duly says the gale reminded hiriTof the explosion of a big dump in France. The heaviest gusts tors along the streets at tremendous speed, and to walk against them was all but impossible. At 2.15 a.m. a break was discovered in the transmission lines of the Lake Coleridge hydro-electric system, and it was 6 a.m. before repairs were effected and the current restored. Mr Skey, of the Government Observatory, said that during the storm the barometer rose one-tenth of an inch in a few minutes, and the thermometer seven degrees in three or four minutes. He believes that the gale had a record velocity for these part^ The Government steamer TutaneKai, which left Wellington at 2 p.m. yesterday for Lyttelton in order to bunker on her way to Oumaru, where she is to pick up thirty hospital patients for Nelson, was struck by the gale at 1.15 a.m. When opposite the Conway river the vessel was hit by a westerly gale of hurricane force, which later suddenly veered to a southerly, again hitting the vessel severely. Captain Post stateo that it was the severest weather he had experienced on the New Zealand coast, "I have done a lot of travelling around the isouth Sea Islands and the Indian Ocean,” he said, ‘‘but I never before experienced anything like it. My chief officer, wno has travelled round the coast for years, says the same.” Captain Morton, of the Monowai, states that the storm was of almost cyclonic violence for about fifteen minutes, and then eased somewhat, although it continued to blow hard for nearly two hours.